Mehbub Amazon Web Services is the world’s largest cloud, offering a total of over 200 services, and is used by companies around the world for the purpose of hosting applications. If your company wants to take its activities to the next level, learning how to get started with AWS is essential.
It may seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Follow the simple seven-step process below and you won’t go far wrong.
Step One: Get Your AWS Account
Amazon Web Services is used by over one million active businesses. If you’re ready to join this community, the first step is to set up your account.
The great news is that AWS offers a free tier of service that you can try out first. Either way, you can sign up for your account by;
- Visiting aws.amazon.com.
- Clicking “Create a free account”.
- Completing the registration pop-up wizard.
Step Two: Understand Your Initial Goals
As you get deeper into your journey with Amazon Web Services’ plethora of cloud-based tools, you will find that the platform has the ability to transform your entire venture. When first starting out, though, it’s best to stay focused on a defined objective. Otherwise, you will run the risk of becoming overawed.
Some of the most beginner-friendly projects that can align with common early goals include;
- Creating document converters,
- Mass emailing,
- Creating serverless web apps,
- Deploying a Windows Virtual Machine.
Step Three: Familiarize Yourself With The AWS Management Console
Knowing what you want to achieve is a great starting point but you also learn how to get started with AWS from a functional outlook. The AWS Management Console web application is the first thing you see when logging into the AWS platform. It is also where all other consoles used to manage AWS services are located.
You will notice a ‘Welcome to AWS’ box on the right sidebar, which can guide you through various processes. Ultimately, though, the best advice is to spend time navigating your way through the dashboard to get a feel for the AWS platform.
Step Four: Make Your First Application
Once you appreciate the visual and navigational aspects of Amazon Web Services, you can start to build your first project. The company has provided a wide range of simple projects for beginners, thus allowing you to build your first application. They can relate to Dev Tools, Serverless applications, AI products, and more.
Once you have completed the first project, it is worth taking on another. You should find that you complete it faster, which will instantly build your confidence.
Step Five: Use The AWS Marketplace
When looking to grow your business with the help of Amazon Web Services, the AWS marketplace is one of the best solutions for new users. It is home to over 10,000 AWS products made by third-party vendors. This includes DevOps, Machine Learning, Business Applications, IoT, Data Products, Infrastructure Software and more.
Thanks to a wide range of vendors and delivery methods, it can be a fantastic way to streamline the process of getting used to AWS. Crucially, it allows you to start using applications with almost immediate effect.
Step Six: Keep Learning With Tutorials
Whether primarily creating projects yourself or turning to the AWS marketplace, educating yourself on how to use AWS is vital. This will allow you to understand the capabilities with greater results while also developing your skills so that cloud business applications can be improved.
Tutorials can help you develop a range of useful business applications. Some of the most useful outlets are;
- Coursera,
- Code Academy,
- Udacity,
- Treehouse.
Step Seven: Protect Yourself
As soon as you learn how to get started with AWS, you’ll see that it is a very valuable asset for your business. Therefore, you cannot allow unauthorized people to put it under threat.
There are several ways to keep yourself protected, such as using strong passwords and setting the right permissions. Above all else, though, you should enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for the root user.
Conclusion
Amazon Web Services is a very powerful platform and you will soon move onto items like Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM).
For now, though, the simple steps of setting up and protecting your account while building your first application are more than enough to put you on the path to success.
